NextGen: Get to Know RAND Experts and Ideas

Through the NextGen initiative, RAND helps rising policy professionals and public servants deepen their understanding of today's most critical issues. We provide educational experiences and content that break down RAND research and analysis on everything from climate and energy, to inequality and equity, to emerging technology.

Our main objective: empower rising leaders to inform, influence, and make better policy decisions.

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Our Programs and Policy Experiences

  • Rising Policy Leaders Dialogues: These roundtables are held at our RAND offices, most frequently in Washington, D.C. Attendees will learn about RAND and our recent work on today's toughest policy challenges.
  • RAND Policy Labs: Policy Labs are virtual learning sessions that provide an exclusive opportunity to hear RAND experts' insights on important global and domestic policy issues.
  • Interactive Learning Experiences: We partner with universities and other organizations and create custom interactive sessions, such as policy-focused games and virtual hackathons.
  • Leadership Intensives: With expertise in more than 350 disciplines, RAND develops classes that sharpen attendees policy prowess and leadership skills.
Contact us to learn more

Upcoming Experiences

  • Employees hang U.S. flags in the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., photo by Elizabeth Fraser / U.S. Department of Defense

    RAND Policy Intensive: National Security

    In this one-day, introductory training course offered through Pardee RAND Graduate School, early- to mid-career public service professionals, policy-interested graduate students and post-doctorates, and private sector national security professionals can explore how research and analysis inform national security decisionmaking.

    Oct 13, 2023

  • Security fencing surrounds the U.S. Capitol days after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the building, in Washington, January 11, 2021, photo by Erin Scott/Reuters

    Addressing Violent Extremism in the United States

    In this Policy Lab, RAND researchers will review findings from a recent study in which they interviewed former extremists and their family members. These interviews provided valuable insights into why and how individuals join extremist organizations—and what might lead them to leave these groups.

    Aug 16, 2023

  • People sitting in chair discussing ideas, illustration by TAK/Getty Images

    Rising Policy Leaders Dialogue

    Learn more about how RAND policy experts tackle the world's toughest challenges at this in-person roundtable in Washington, D.C. Topics include rising tensions between China and Taiwan and the challenges facing America's Black middle class.

    Aug 30, 2023

Past Projects

  • Millennial aged journalists recording a podcast and discussing their work.

    RAND x Poynter: Custom Policy Education for Journalists

    RAND partners with the Poynter Institute to create innovative educational opportunities for journalists. Programming focuses on breaking down the policy research process and how critical policy issues affect the general public.

  • The words Hacking Equity on a black background with abstract lines and squares, image by Peter Soriano/RAND Corporation

    RAND, Pardee RAND, and AUCC Partner for Equity Hackathons

    By connecting emerging leaders of color from Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, and Spelman with experienced policy analysts from RAND and doctoral candidates from Pardee RAND Graduate School, the equity hackathon series run by the Pardee RAND Tech + Narrative Lab and RAND's NextGen Initiative spark a wide range of fresh insights and creative explorations.

  • Tackling Truth Decay

    Truth Decay is the declining role of facts and analysis in American life. In 2022, RAND launched an online campaign to help the public understand how this phenomenon works, its consequences, and what can be done to stop it.

  • Artistic, abstract representation of data

    RAND Art + Data: Artist Residency Program

    Through RAND Art + Data, four groundbreaking artists used RAND research as their inspiration for visual storytelling. The result is a novel form of data expression that challenges how we think about policy analysis.

Meet the NextGen Leadership Team

Learn More About RAND

We are nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.

We solve the world’s toughest problems.

With more than 1,000 policy experts in 350 disciplines, RAND tackles the toughest policy challenges—from climate and energy, to inequality and equity, to emerging technology, and much more.

We educate the policy leaders of tomorrow.

RAND educates the policy leaders of tomorrow through the Pardee RAND Graduate School, which offers both master's and doctorate degrees in policy analysis. We also offer a Summer Associate Program.

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